Wife who wants to keep name should gently break it to spouse
Dear Miss Manners: I got married in May but have yet to change my last name.
Initially, I cited our honeymoon and the need for the name on my passport to match my ID. Then we bought a house, and I didn’t want to delay the closing because of the documents not matching my name.
Now my husband keeps asking me when I plan to change my name, and I have run out of excuses. After some self-reflection, I realize that I’m afraid to give up my last name. I’m in my early 30s and have established myself in politics and in my career in the city where we live.
What is the proper etiquette for marriage in your 30s and changing your last name? Is it OK to keep both last names? Should the last names be hyphenated?
Gentle reader: What you call yourself is entirely up to you, not Miss Manners. But etiquette does clarify that you not chastise or lecture others for getting your name wrong.
Tact and sensitivity in presenting your decision to your husband (and sympathy for your children, if they must juggle multihyphenated names) are always appreciated.
Dear Miss Manners:
On a flight where there were small children in business class, the business people did not appreciate the wiggling, screaming, crying, kicking of seats and overall disruption.
The business people were trying to either rest or work. In their opinion, they’d bought a premium ticket to avoid the calamities of flying coach.
After one businessclass passenger talked to another passenger parent about his disruptive child in first-class, the parent shot back: “I bought a ticket just like you did. My kid has every right to be here. My kid is a kid and can’t help it.”
Mr. Businessman snorted back at the parent, “How would you like it if I brought my grandfather, who has dementia, and seated him next to you
in business class? He, too, yells, screams, soils his pants and drools. He can’t help it, either.”
It got ugly, and the airline staff had to calm the situation. I didn’t engage in either side of the argument, remaining wide-eyed and silent, but I could see why each side thought itself correct.
I’ve always thought that business class was the equivalent of the “grown-up” table at Thanksgiving — that one had to earn the right to sit there through proper manners and decorum.
If one isn’t conscious of the decorum expected in first/business class, he or she has no “business” being there, no matter the age of the passenger.
Others say that they paid a premium for additional space in business class, and it doesn’t matter whether their child or mentally challenged companion disrupts others. Still others say to suck it up, as it’s public transport.
Miss Manners, please give us some guidelines on expected decorum in first-class. What should we tolerate?
Gentle reader: It is public transport: There is nothing prohibitive about who sits in which class except for the cost itself. And although it is to be hoped that no diapers are changed outside of a restroom, your examples reinforce how rudeness knows no age limits.